


Beside the springs of the Dove

by loversinfiniteness



Category: The Mill on the Floss - George Eliot
Genre: F/M, Letters, Missing Scene, Spoilers, Tragedy, incredibly niche
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-23
Updated: 2018-05-23
Packaged: 2019-05-13 01:24:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14739461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loversinfiniteness/pseuds/loversinfiniteness
Summary: But the days dragged on and Stephen had given up hope of a letter ever arriving. He began to imagine his days in Amsterdam, wandering along its canals when he should have been strolling along them with Maggie, his motions on repeat because she did not call, she would not call for him, and he was helpless until she did.





	Beside the springs of the Dove

**Author's Note:**

> My mission to write fanfiction for more and more obscure media finally finds a winner. I was angry at the ending of The Mill on the Floss, although not bitterly. So instead of a fix-it, here's a missing scene.
> 
> Title from Wordsworth's 'She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways', which has an uncanny similarity to 'The Mill on the Floss'... a girl by a river, her fairly unknown life (as Eliot likes to write her characters: the last line of 'Middlemarch', no?) and least of all, a girl called Lucy.

He had been living in the same lodgings for a week now, in the hopes that shortly, he would no longer have to. Maggie would write to him. He knew her heart and knew how it was drawn to the love he could offer her, and he did not believe, with the surety of a man in its clasp, that there was any stronger force on Earth than love.

But the days dragged on and Stephen had given up hope of a letter ever arriving. He began to imagine his future days in Amsterdam, wandering along its canals when he should have been strolling along them with Maggie, his motions on repeat because she did not call, she would not call for him, and he was helpless until she did.

So the letter came as a surprise. But when he saw it, it all began to make sense. The unfamiliar handwriting, the English postage stamp and Stephen understanding that this had taken Maggie time — time to consider, and reconsider, her fascinating heart battling against the love he knew she felt for him — meant that _this was Maggie_ , speaking to him at last. She had fought with herself, his darling, and finally she had chosen his love.

Then the doubt at the pit of his feelings crept in, and Stephen remembered that love had not been enough for Maggie the first time. She craved goodness, was unable to let herself be swept away by love. This could be her last word of parting.

And yet, her rejection would still be written by _her_ , and Stephen knew that he would fall in love with her all over again just through reading her words. Then he would know what she was thinking, and suddenly events formed in his mind like a painted storyboard. He would go to her, she would not be able to ignore him, he would make it so her whole heart and soul would be free to love him, and they would be lifted out of this weary separation into bliss.

He tore open the letter, and froze.

The writer was not Maggie, but a Mrs Glegg Stephen could only faintly recall. Her first sentence told him that Maggie was dead, along with her brother, and then proceeded to give details to an extent appropriate for a coroner. Stephen felt a rush of fury that it was her brother — a rather bullying and selfish man, he remembered from Philip — who had been granted the privilege of eternal sleep beside Maggie, when it was Stephen who had loved her devotedly, absolutely. He suddenly wished that he was dead and buried with Maggie so that if they could not be together on Earth, they could be in Heaven. Bitterly he thought how life with Maggie on Earth would be Heaven anyway, and wondered for how long happiness would be to him denied.

Mrs Glegg was still describing the flood — _damn her_ , Stephen thought viciously, as he scanned the paper desperately — and then he stopped.

_It is entirely indecorous of me, Sir, to write this paragraph, but Mrs Tulliver insisted and I do my best to lessen my kin's burdens when I can. It is her private belief that Maggie did not leave you for want of loving you. No, indeed — I am told she was devoted to her brother since childhood, but her love for you threatened the love she had for Tom. She loved you too much, if such a thing is possible, to be able to reconcile her love for you with her need for Tom's validation. If she had gone with you, it would have seemed to her a weakness, not because of the shame it would bring on her family, but because she felt she would be cheapening the love she felt for you. I can't say I understand one jot of it, Sir, but I presume a man in love can understand some things better than I._

Finally, the tears came, as if Maggie's aunt's faintly severe judgement of their relationship had triggered something within him. He took out another piece of paper and wrote to Maggie, insistent that her death would change nothing and there would never be another woman who had so much of his heart as she did, his tears diluting the ink so that the words ran down the page and the paper curled. He fancied that he knew her response without her being there — because she was in his heart, always — and that she would be telling him that the pain would pass and in the future, he would go back to Lucy. This made him angrier, and he thought furiously how the future did not matter to him if she was not in it — _dearest, sweetest, loveliest Maggie, there is no one like you in the world_ — and then Stephen pushed aside the letter and wept into his writing desk.

He wept until he felt he could drown in the flood of tears, and then that thought brought him comfort, that he would befall the same ending that Maggie did. There was no stronger bond than two people befalling the same death, and Stephen willed himself into feeling the water overwhelm him, so that he might never be parted from the fascinating creature for whom he lived for.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me at loversinfiniteness on Tumblr, to send prompts, mourn deaths in classic lit or just chat!


End file.
